Restaurant terrace at Casetes des Capellans in Playa de Muro, Mallorca

Terraces were restored this summer. | Lola Olmo

Andrew EdeMuro29/10/2023 08:33
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It was October 2009. Residents of Muro who had rights to the cottages in Ses Casetes des Capellans staged a protest. The Costas Authority was threatening this small part of Playa de Muro by the boundary with Can Picafort with the demolition of many of the cottages and bars. This particular threat was not followed up, but there was subsequently a redrawing of the demarcation line. The Costas Authority is officially known as Demarcación de Costas, this referring to where public maritime-terrestrial domain ends, a domain over which the Costas have responsibility.

Protest in Casetes des Capellans in Playa de Muro
The protest in October 2009.

In 2021, the residents responded to the new demarcation by presenting some two thousand submissions against it. Twenty-three cottages were now at risk, as were the terraces of three beachside restaurants - Can Gavella, La Ponderosa and Opa & Oma.

Muro town hall has always supported its people and the restaurants - Capellans was a gift to the town hall almost one hundred years ago, and it was with the express purpose of being available to Muro citizens, mainly as summer properties.

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The town hall has therefore made its representations to the Costas regarding a communal area that constitutes the last stretch of Mallorca's coast where the state has not established a definitive boundary - a demarcation.

In the case of the restaurants, they had to close their terraces. But this summer they reopened them. This was despite there having not been specific authorisation. Jaume Perelló, the owner of Can Gavella, explains: "The demarcation proposed two years ago expired. Therefore we could reassemble the terraces. We will continue fighting to maintain our businesses, which have been in Capellans all our lives."

The mayor of Muro, Miquel Porquer, interprets the situation differently. "It turns out that for legal purposes, the one that is valid is the 2021 demarcation, and that forces us to request authorisations from the Costas." In the town hall's view, the 23 cottages and the terraces are still affected, but there is confusion, as the Spanish state let the file expire without there being a definitive solution.

The fear is though that the judicial route has been exhausted, the town hall, the people and the restaurant owners now clinging to the hope that the recent transfer of powers from the Costas to the Balearic government will result in what they all want - maintaining their little bit of paradise.